One big political party -- call them Republicrats -- is tearing us apart

If I were 26 years old, I would become an emigrant.

If I were 36, I would become a revolutionary.

But I am 66 years old and very tired, so all I can really do is keep writing and hope my words can influence at least one or two people to look at our system and see the rot behind the facade.

You can't have a functioning republic if 65 percent of the people never read books.

You can't have a functioning economy when 40 percent of the people are too illiterate to hold down shift leader jobs at fast food restaurants.

You can't have a functioning country of 308 million people when a major political movement is about not trusting the government to do anything, or when most politicians of both parties are so deep in corporate pockets that they rarely even see the people they're supposed to represent.

Following in dad's footsteps not a good qualification for president

One of the toughest burdens to overcome is being the son of a famous father.

Mickey Mantle Jr. couldn't play baseball, Frank Sinatra Jr. was a mediocre singer, Richard Simmons Jr. was ...

Uh, Mike. There will never be a Richard Simmons Jr.

Oh, right. Anyway, you get the point. I would imagine that if Jesus had had a son, he would have been a pretty pale imitation of his dad.

Which brings us to Big George Bush and George Junior.

Mike, you're still bashing George Dubya?

It's actually necessary. So much of what L'il Dubya did is still with us, like Sammy Alito and John Roberts and their horrific Citizens United vs. FEC decision.

It's apparent that when it comes to America, Dubya is going to be the gift that keeps on giving. And with little brother Jebya! currently running, it makes it even more timely.

Big George is actually a pretty impressive man, if you look at him. He was the youngest fighter pilot in World War II, he actually succeeded in the oil bidness and he carved out a political career for himself.

Income inequality problems are a matter of percentages, not dollars

This is a subject I have addressed before, so I promise not to be long-winded about it.

The growing income equality in the United States is one of the biggest problems facing our country.

It isn't just hard numbers, either. It isn't just that there are far more billionaires than there used to be.

The real problem is that the folks at the top of the ladder have been accruing a higher and higher percentage of the national wealth.

We have reached the point where the top 1 percent own about a third of all our wealth. Go back 50 or 60 years and they had less than 10 percent. So even if we were to change our income tax policies tomorrow back to what they were in the 1950s, there isn't anything in those policies that would take things back to where they were. Most of the wealth in their hands isn't income, and the massive reductions in the estate tax will mean most of it never gets touched.

So our tendency to moderate our policies makes it nearly impossible to solve the problem created by the Reagan tax cut of 1986 that lowered the top tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent.

Additional policies lowering taxes on capital gains only made things worse. Most folks never have sufficient capital gains for it to make a difference.

Nearly every tax policy from Reagan onward only made income equality worse.

This is no longer the country those of us who came of age in the '50s and '60s grew up in.

And that country isn't coming back.

It isn't about hard dollars, it's about percentages.

And our rich friends aren't giving any of it back. The only way to get it back is going to be to take it.

Where are Bonnie and Clyde when we really need them?

Not about free markets or consumers, America is ideas and dreams

Six years ago in another venue, I made a list of what I thought were the 10 greatest moments in American history. Looking back, I decided there were two others that needed to be mentioned, but I didn't want to remove any of the original ones.

So I dropped my original No. 10 to 12th place and put my additions in at 11 and 10. The first nine remain unchanged.

Here's my new list:

12. Creation of the National Park System in 1916 -- This is when Americans decided that we wanted to preserve some of our scenic beauty. A lot of people credit this to Theodore Roosevelt, who was a great voice for conservation, but it happened late in Woodrow Wilson's first term.

11. Presidential election of 2008 -- This isn't anything specific about Barack Obama. I think he will be remembered as a fine president, but that's not my reason for including this event on the list. No, the election of 2008 was the first time any free, Western nation elected a president who came from a minority of less than 15 percent of the population. That's worth remembering.

Parenting has changed somewhat over the last few generations

"We can never get Dad to do anything. As soon as he gets home from work, he's playing video games ... or posting on Facebook ... or downloading porn."

Those are things you never heard in my house when I was growing up, and not just because there were no video games, Facebook or downloadable porn in the '50s and '60s. The truth is that unless your dad was a drunk or some other sort of bum, he wasn't looking for all sorts of ways he could have fun.

Look at it this way: The last generation to grow up without television in the home may also have been the last generation that was far more concerned with their responsibilities than their rights.

Sadly, most of them are gone now. The very youngest Baby Boomers are 51 this year, so the youngest parents from our parents' generation are in their 70s. All of my friends have lost either one or both of their parents, and the ones still alive are far past three score and 10.

I don't think I ever heard my father say, "Hey, I need some me time." He didn't have a bowling night, or a night he went out and drank beer with his buddies. He may not have been a Ward Cleaver who kept his white shirt and tie on till bedtime, but I never saw my dad -- or any of my friends' dads -- sitting around in their underwear watching television.

I wish I could say I didn't spend all sorts of time on the computer when my kids were growing up, but at least I didn't download porn. And I do think I was there most of the time when my kids needed me. Neither of them have gone on shooting sprees yet.

When I look at myself and my friends and compare us to our fathers, I find myself amazed at just how far from the tree some of the apples fell. I have no friends -- and I include myself in this -- of whom I could say they surpassed their fathers' accomplishments.

I'll bet we had more fun. For some reason, that mattered to us.

A lot of people don't understand what freedom is really all about

Freedom.

Thomas Jefferson said it was about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The National Rifle Association says it's about the right to own guns. Kris Kristofferson said it was just another word for nothing left to lose.

What exactly does freedom mean to us in this 16th year of the 21st century, this sixth year in the decade known as the 'teens?

In the early days of our country it meant the right to worship however we wanted, the right to speak against the government, the right to print the truth no matter where it took us. It also meant the right to pull up stakes, head for the frontier and get a fresh start somewhere new.

Certainly freedom meant no one telling us where we had to live ... or work ... or worship.

Those are important things. But I wonder how free someone is if he has $20,000 worth of credit card debt, if he's upside down in his mortgage and he can't change jobs because he's scared to death of losing the meager health insurance he has. I wonder how much freedom of speech means to him.

I wonder how free someone is if she is ignorant of what's going on in the world, if she hasn't read a book since high school and she gets all her knowledge of the world from a talk-radio host someone told her she ought to like. I wonder how much freedom of the press means to her.

Don't get me wrong. Our constitutional freedoms are wonderful things, even if many of us never exercise them other than to say, "Rush is right. Obama is an idiot."

But it might really be true that freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose these days.

How many people do you know who are locked into lives they hate because they literally owe their soul to the company store? How many people do you know who bit off more than they can chew financially and have no hope of ever getting out from under?

How many people do you know who have every toy or gadget you could imagine -- but hate their lives? How many people do you know who really hold fast to a traditional American belief -- that their children will have better lives than they do?

Why on Earth should 'original intent' of the Founders matter in 2016?

Have you ever argued something for years, going back and forth trying to convince other people you're right and they're wrong?

Whether it's conspiracy theories, climate change or immigration, some issues never seem to be settled.

One of the most fundamental arguments these days is about the original intent of the Founding Fathers as to how strong (or weak) the central government should be.

There are folks on the far right who honestly believe the right to keep and bear arms came from a desire by the Founders to keep the government weak.

I find myself arguing this and other points as if they were logical.

But then, all of a sudden, it hit me.

Huh?

What are we doing?

Why does the original intent of the Founders even matter nearly 230 years after the writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?

Refusing to allow ourselves to be isolated can make life much better

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere.

"Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends.

"When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around."
-- Introduction to "LOVE ACTUALLY"

There's a lot of talk about how angry people are these days, and it seems all we ever hear anymore is folks who snap and start shooting, or folks who talk about the opposition as if it's the embodiment of evil.

I'm not buying it. I think at the most basic level, most people are pretty much the same. They want to do the best they can for their family and they want their children to have a better life than they've had.
They don't want to see people homeless or starving, but they don't want the government telling everyone how they should live.

The fact is, most people just want to be left alone to do the best they can for themselves.

No matter how bad you think things are, they're actually worse

"We find ourselves trapped on a dark and nasty merry-go-round. One that keeps going faster and faster to the point where everyone is too terrified to jump off."
-- JOE BAGEANT

I admire truth tellers, even if it seems like the best of them always die young.

And I'm sort of tired of folks on one side or the other -- and I include myself in this -- who keep yelling as they try and convince folks that their way is the best.

If Republicans have proved one thing in the last seven years, it's that when they are not in power, they are going to do everything they can to prevent the other side from governing at all.

At all.

I'm not just talking about blocking so-called "Socialist" programs. I'm talking about blocking or slowing down every single appointment that needs to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Think about that. Routine jobs, undersecretaries, assistants to the assistants ... if they need Senate confirmation, Republicans are turning it into root canal surgery.

They have filibustered appointments that then pass 96-0, all with the purpose of grinding the government to a halt.